Conventionally, force-on-force training, or aggressive joint manipulation and sparring, typically resulted in injury to one or both training partners. Continued training with a human opponent at full ferocity and aggression for any appreciable length of time is bound to result in injury.
While heavy bags, both hanging and free standing, may be useful for a work out, can help somewhat with accuracy, and can allow the user to employ his technique at full force and intensity, they typically are too large to really develop pinpoint accuracy. Moreover, even given their size, heavy bags are not really heavy enough, as they typically weigh only about 120 lbs, to simulate humans, and they do not lend themselves to practicing locks, breaks, chokes, knife techniques, disarming maneuvers, or other human anatomy specific techniques, for example.
Often a martial arts trainee is forced to train with a partner at a restrained effort level, to minimize risk of injury. Thus, when training breaks and locks, both people must move and apply pressures that do not inflict more than a minimal amount of pain. Such simulated training does not allow a trainee to practice their art at the level that is actually needed when, for example, a violent real-world, self-defense situation presents itself.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a training platform that would allow users to train at full effort and ferocity with realistic damage feedback. The platform should be capable of human-like defensive, and even offensive, movements. It should be configured to suffer breaks and dislocated bones and/or joints at various points, and should be capable of delivering a multitude of feedback information to the user. Desirably, it should have an approximately 1:1 height and weight ratio to that of a real human. It should also be designed to be accessible and affordable.